


It’s the Side Effects That Save Us

by theshipsfirstmate



Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: 5x20 fic, F/M, Not A Fix-It, just a bunch of angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-10
Updated: 2017-05-10
Packaged: 2018-10-30 05:13:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,555
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10869822
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theshipsfirstmate/pseuds/theshipsfirstmate
Summary: Post-5x20, my attempt to sort through that wholly unsatisfying final Olicity scene.“The last time they sat in a hospital room together, his eyes were sparkling like his mother’s ring and he was trying to cheer her up with promises she thinks they both knew, even then, that he wouldn’t be able to keep.”





	It’s the Side Effects That Save Us

_Title from “[Graceless](http://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DJpz_gUyImhw&t=YzhkNDI4MzA5OTBiM2MzYjUyZTA4YzY4MjNlZDhkNWNiNGYxNzRhMiw3bTJKanQ4aQ%3D%3D&b=t%3AiAw4tJIAalN1OvhWtUFPsQ&p=http%3A%2F%2Ftheshipsfirstmate.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F160503388249%2Farrow-fic-its-the-side-effects-that-save-us&m=1)” by The National. _

**It’s the Side Effects That Save Us**

It says something about them, that he only apologizes when he thinks it might be the end, and she only does it when it’s time to begin again.

Felicity walks into Oliver’s room at the ARGUS facility on legs that still feel like pins and needles. But they’re working, well enough to be there when he asks for her, and that’s what’s important right now. Of course, it’s the first thing he points out, and she can’t help but remember the last time, how she stood again in front of him, how she walked, and how it led them to this moment.

The first time she lost her legs was a lot like the first time she lost him, a shock to the system that very nearly took her under for good. How do you unlearn something your body’s known forever? How do you let go of something that’s been there from the start? She had sat alone in a hospital room like this one, waiting for him, just like she had sat alone in the bunker after he left for Nanda Parbat. Both times, she wept – first for him, then for herself, and then for what could have been.

Tonight, she lost her legs first, like some kind of cosmic retribution for learning to stand on her own. But that hadn’t been anywhere near as painful or devastating as watching Oliver collapse in the tunnel underneath the bunker, knowing she was powerless to save him. Even worse, somehow, had been the words he uttered before losing consciousness.

He had apologized like a penance, forcing out a confessional with what he thought might be his dying breaths, even as she begged him not to. She’s heard so many goodbyes trip from his lips and still, when he spat back up the poison that Chase had force-fed him, the last salvageable pieces of her heart had ground to dust.

_“I don’t trust myself,”_ he had whimpered, begging her with everything he had left to believe him. And she did, Felicity knew for certain in that moment. She dug her nails into his chest, tears soaking through the front of his shirt as blood seeped through the back, and promised herself that if he came back to her this time, she’d remind him once again.

She knows who he is, even when he forgets. She’s known him since the day his blood stained the backseat of her old car and all the perplexing pieces of his persona fell together. She knows him well enough to promise him that the things that villain planted in his head aren’t true, and they never have been. She knows him well enough that she was ready to promise him “‘til death do us part,” even when they both knew that could be sooner rather than later.

_The man she fell in love with._ Every time she utters the phrase, Oliver shifts almost imperceptibly, as if he’s _so sure_ she’s talking about someone else. But that’s who he is, even still. After everything they’ve lost and everything they’ve been through, she knows him, and she loves him. Felicity tries to cut through his tortured and battered psyche to tell him as much – there are only so many words she can say out loud – and then he saves them both all over again.

Now, mercifully alive in front of her, Oliver reaches for her hand and she clutches back tightly as a million memories of being tangled up with him flash through her mind. The last time they sat in a hospital room together, his eyes were sparkling like his mother’s ring and he was trying to cheer her up with promises she thinks they both knew, even then, that he wouldn’t be able to keep.

And so it’s fitting now, perhaps, that this next chapter of their story starts with another mess of half-truths, strung together like an inelegant elegy.

She tells him that she’s sorry, again, even if she’s as unsure about saying the words as he seems to be hearing them. Maybe it’s because he’s already said them once tonight, it’s her turn. Maybe it’s because she knows that two wrongs have never made a right. Maybe it’s because she keeps realizing that it doesn’t hurt any less to lose him, now that he’s no longer hers to hold.

She doesn’t tell him that, when she pressed her ear to his chest earlier, desperate to hear his heart beat, a tiny part of her had been grateful that if this was it, they would at least go together this time.

She tells him about Billy, tells him that her quest for retribution started when Prometheus put an arrow in her next best attempt at happiness. She tells him that mostly to keep the guilt off of the broad shoulders that already carry the weight of the world.

She doesn’t tell him that she discovered how to turn heartbreak into vengeance years ago. She got a taste after Cooper, but it was loving Oliver that helped her perfect the practice. She doesn’t tell him that she’s been headed down this path since she stuck a needle in Slade Wilson’s neck and sneered in the face of three different Demon’s Heads. All for him. She doesn’t tell him that one of the reasons Billy’s death had knocked her so sideways is because she had only ever prepared herself to avenge one man.

She tells him that she’s gotten a taste of what he’s been through, though really it was a bitter mouthful.

She doesn’t tell him that it wasn’t his lack of support that she had longed for while diving headfirst and headstrong into Helix. It was _him_. Him and John and the rest of the team too, but mostly him. In a room full of similarly-minded peers, she’s never felt more alone than when Alena pressed a gun into her hand with a smile that understood more than she did.

She tells him that he was right, she was becoming like him. But she makes it sound like it’s something reversible. There’s no limit to what he can do if he thinks he can save her, they’ve already proven that a few times today, and more than anything, she wants to give him something to believe in. He’s so beautiful with hope in his eyes.

She doesn’t tell him that he hasn’t been watching closely enough to see that her metamorphosis is already complete. Just like him, she had become someone else in Russia, ready to wrap herself around an atomic bomb to save the lives she couldn’t get back in Havenrock. There’s no coming back from the place that she’s sunken to, and the rational part of her knows that’s something Oliver would understand all too well. But she won’t give him more to carry, not right now.

She saves the biggest lie for last, and it nearly sticks in her throat.

She’ll never understand why he lied to her about William. Never. Not when there was a diamond on her finger and room on their mantle for more family photos. She’s re-lived that moment a million times in her head, and not even in her wildest, most irrational imaginings, does she see herself reacting in a way that would justify his secrecy.

It wasn’t about his trust in her, that’s what he says. But there’s nothing else it could be, and even if hindsight is 20/20, the secrecy, that specific deception had picked painfully at some of her oldest scars.

But there’s no time now, to cry for herself. Chase knows about William, which means that’s what’s coming next. And she can’t let Oliver shut her out again, not when his biggest battle lies ahead, not when his son’s life is on the line.

Felicity can’t save the world, or even the city, but maybe she can save him from himself. And after their ordeal tonight, she’s newly aware, with stark clarity, that she’s still willing to die for him, no matter what role she plays in his living. She’ll give him anything if he’ll let her help, even an apology that she only half believes.

She tells him these lies, and then she tells him something true.

She’s tells him that it’s time for him to figure out who he is, because she’s not sure how many more times she can remind him. She tells him that because she can’t say _I still love you_ , not out loud. Not just yet. She tells him that because this magnetic pull between the two of them feels as inevitable as it always did. For as long as they keep at this noble and unrewarding work, they’ll be in each other’s orbit and she can’t stay by his side without remembering what it was like to be even closer.

She doesn’t tell him that she misses him so much she can’t breathe sometimes, doesn’t tell him that she can’t tell if the ache in her chest is hardened hollowness or the space he used to fill. She doesn’t tell him that tonight, when she returns to the empty home they once shared, she’ll cry – first for him, and then for herself, and then for what’s to come.


End file.
